Pessimism
by Miss Kwon
Summary: Arthur will probably be better in the morning. .:One-shot:. Short fanfiction dealing with anxiety attack/anxiety disorders.


TW: explicit anxiety attack (well, that's basic the whole story of this one-shot, it's about a character with an anxiety disorder).

..

Doors closed. Check.

Windows, also closed. Double check.

Lying comfortably on bed to fall asleep. Check too. Eyes closed, lying relaxed among blankets, just waiting to fall asleep. Which should not take too long, surely should not take _this_ long. _It cannot happen again, not now. _He wants to reach his cell phone on the small desk beside his bed, to press any button to see for how many minutes he has been lying there, sleepless.

It probably hasn't been over fifteen minutes, anyway, but light too bright will hurt his eyes and his head will ache and that just can't happen. He wants to sleep, so he fights to stay perfectly still on bed, where he is safe, comfortable and okay.

Did he really close the windows before going to bed?

He remembers closing and re-opening them only to close them again, to be sure they're locked. But what if he forgot to close the second time? Or what if it was his imagination telling him he did that because it's automatic while in reality he forgot to close them all?

_Not safe._

He could get up but it's been over twenty minutes now and _for god's sake_, he needs to sleep. If he doesn't... He will go utterly tired to the meeting, won't pay enough attention and could do something bad forget something behind have trouble speaking, which would cause him to be laughed at and he would of course get out of there because he knows how the people at the meeting will react if anything goes wrong and everything will be ruined and no no no it cannot happen.

He feels his heart racing and a sudden need of air and _damn it,_ for how long he's been holding his breath? Great, now he has to normalize his breath so he can try to sleep.

It won't happen.

And he ignores the thought of "but what if it does?" as soon as it shows up. Arthur is a calm, serious, educated, perfectly okay with speaking in public man who won't go through this again. All of this. He just needs to be relaxed and it will be avoided.

He turns to the other side, tightening his grip on the pillow because he's sure it's been over an hour and why can't he sleep? Why why why? He's - not really - safe, he's comfortable, he's okay. Why does his heart race and why can't he breathe and why is he awake? He throws his pillow out at the other side of the room and there's no way he'll get out of his bed to pick it up.

_Not comfortable._

He obviously will not be able to pay attention and screw up or he will get so little sleep he won't be able to wake up in the morning and screw up. Either way, everything is ruined for him, but it's a damn meeting, it's important, it'll decide important things with other nations and he just can't screw up.

No no no. It will be just fine, he will do it.

...

But what if he falls asleep while driving? What if he confuses two words while speaking and be ridiculed and not finish his speech? What if he stutter in front of everyone? What if he doesn't wake up in time? What if he gets lost in his way? What if no no no. It. Can't. Happen.

He's sweating, his heart beats too fast and too strong, and wait, is that a tear? Damn, it's a tear a lot of tears and his sight is severely blurry now, when did his hands start to shake so much? His bed is too messy and he knows he won't sleep and he just needs to get out of there so he gets on his side, ready to jump off the bed and for now, he chooses to ignore his trembling body.

Did he actually close the door?

_Not okay._

While he gets up, _why the bloody hell is the floor so damn cold?_, he's sure panic has taken over. He's familiar to it. He cries and his throat is sore and he shivers and is shaking so bad it's difficult to pick up the phone. 4:07 a.m.

He makes his way through the kitchen to drink water - too much water - and start to check on everything again while ignoring the feeling that someone had broken in and was ready to kill him.

He throws himself on the couch. Not safe, not comfortable, not okay. But he is there and he needs distraction so he re-reads his speech and all his plans, hopefully he could take a few hours reading anything. Panic and tension still go through him and he takes long to read properly again, even if he knows his trembling hands will make it difficult anyway.

He's used to it, but being used to it doesn't make it any easier to handle.

Arthur pulls his knees to his chest, trying his best to organize his thoughts, breathing profoundly and repeating some words to himself to cope. This can take a while.

But at least he knows he'll probably be better in the morning.

* * *

A/N: Thank you so much for reading.

Now, I know it's not well written, first because English is not my first language, second because I wrote this while trying to avoid anxiety (nope, it doesn't make any sense) and only edited after (also I didn't read it again before posting so there's probably a lot of things wrong).

I didn't really do a research for this, since I suffer because of extreme anxiety myself (never been to a psychologist though, so I don't know if I do have a disorder or not), so I hope that if you have an AD too, you won't feel offended (I know that it can be inaccurate, if you think so, feel free to come to me and tell me what I should change).

Also I don't know why I chose Arthur Kirkland. Maybe because in my mind he has GAD (generalized anxiety disorder) and a bit of social phobia or OCD.

Well, that's it, thank you for reading.


End file.
